Circle of Time Boxed Set Read online

  Circle of Time Boxed Set

  Rise of the Black Dragon, Books 7 - 9

  Jada Fisher

  Copyright © 2020 Jada Fisher

  All Rights Reserved

  Except for review quotes, this book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without the written consent of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. All people, places, names, and events are products of the author’s imagination and / or used fictitiously. Any similarities to actual people, places, or events is purely coincidental.

  Individual Cover Designs by Christian Bentulan

  Contents

  Betrayed

  1. Where to Go from Here

  2. Soaring Dreams

  3. Last Rites Celebration

  4. The Enemy of My Enemy Still Wants to Kill Me

  5. At the Precipice with Naught but a Rope

  6. Grimdark Becomes Darker

  7. Synergy

  8. Lies of Omission

  9. What a Web We Weave

  10. The Jaws Snap Shut

  11. Worse than Imagined

  12. The Easy Part

  13. Blood Here Spilt

  Ripped Through Time

  1. A Knife in the Back

  2. What Can Go Wrong Will Go Wrong

  3. The Brink of Destruction

  4. The Last Dregs of a Plan

  5. Where to Go from Here

  6. Myths and Legends

  7. The Best Laid Plans Go Astray

  8. Crash Landing

  9. Ghosts Long Laid Buried

  10. Echoes of the Past become the Present’s Hymn

  11. Hit the Wall

  12. Beginning in the Middle to Get to the End

  13. The Start of it All

  Circle of Time

  1. Back Again and Worse for Wear

  2. What’s Worth Dying Living For

  3. The Last Line of Defense

  4. Short-Lived Victory

  5. Life Keeps on Spinning

  6. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat Again

  7. Where it Began, It Must End

  8. The Start of it All

  9. Rebirth

  10. Breaking the Cycle

  11. Righting the Wrongs

  12. Time is a Gift

  Epilogue

  Thank You

  Fantasy Reads Newsletter

  Betrayed

  Rise of the Black Dragon, Book 7

  1

  Where to Go from Here

  Seven months.

  It had been seven months since they found the last of the vessels. Seven months since they discovered that Crispin and Cassinda had been vessels all along. Seven months since they found out that they were being hunted down by one of their own.

  And yet, sometimes, it felt like hardly any time had passed at all.

  Ukrah sighed to herself as she laced up her boots. She had grown again, resulting in the cobbler coming by and making her another pair. She hated them. They needed to be broken in, and they were too fancy. Like something a lord or lady would wear and nothing at all like the sandals or hide shoes she would wear to cut across the desert.

  She was taller than Eist, Helena, and Dille now, with no signs of stopping, though at least she had the comfort of knowing she would probably never beat Athar’s size. It wasn’t that she was entirely opposed to growing, it was just harder to be stealthy or silent when her legs kept getting longer, her hips wider, and her chest fuller.

  That part…she definitely hated.

  She had always been rather squat. Squarish. Too stocky to be a willowy beauty, too compact to be a curvaceous vixen. But that seemed to be changing by the day, with fat layering on top of her muscles until she was a strange mix of hard-earned striations and rippling, squishy bits.

  Her days had somehow settled in a handful of patterns depending on other people, and she wasn’t sure how being in the possible end-times could be dull, but that was exactly where she was.

  Since they all knew what and who they were looking for, everyone in her trusted circle was out looking for both the sect and the spirit. It was three of the remaining followers of the Three who had boosted themselves up from prejudiced heretics all the way to enemies of the state.

  Of course, all of that was slowed by the fracture in the council, with accusations, investigations, and new inquiries taking over entire days sometimes. Ukrah had thought that would ease after the trial of those who had attacked the capital—the first executions since the eradication of witches. That turned out to be completely wrong.

  It’d been a horrible affair. She’d attended, of course, because she felt it was her responsibility. She had caught some of the sect that were sentenced to death, and Voirdr’s cry had caused the capture of many of the riders. It felt like it was her duty to see it through, she was the vessel of justice, after all.

  She really wished she hadn’t.

  The thrill of battle, of exacting justice on those who transgressed, on those who hurt the innocent, was completely absent. Instead, there was just anger from the crowd. Wounds that were raw and open and looking for some sort of salve. But Ukrah didn’t think they’d find it as the perpetrators were walked up to the execution pyre, or even as the white dragon breathed her cleansing fire. Instead, the whole thing was haunting. Depressing.

  She didn’t like it.

  Those days were definitely the worst, made only more so because Dille, as governess, was the one who had to orchestrate and attend the proceedings the most often. Ukrah may have been young, and maybe they weren’t the closest of friends, but she could see how the events wore on the woman, leaving her too drained to do much about their lessons or researching what to do about a vessel turned murderous.

  “Hey, what did that wall ever do to you?”

  Ukrah blinked, looking to her door to see Marcellin standing there, a smile across his handsome features.

  Recovery had continued to be good to him. His cheeks had filled out and his shoulders broadened. He’d started to put muscle on, but still had the careful build of a dancer or one of those rope-performers Ukrah had seen during a walk through the city when she and Crispin had stumbled across some sort of traveling show.

  Now when she thought of traveling shows, she mostly wanted to shudder.

  “Pardon?” she asked, standing up to stretch. How long had she been sitting there? It had been a while since she’d been so lost in her head.

  “You were just glowering. I have to say, I know you pretty well and I was still intimidated. Hate to think how the wall feels.”

  She offered him a wan smile. “I was just thinking about my boots.”

  His eyebrows went up to his thick, curly hair. Interestingly enough, he’d chosen to keep growing it out after his initial cut following the whole wig ordeal. She guessed a little over a year had allowed for it to not bother him as much anymore. Not that she minded, his mop of thick and wild curls was endearing, but while he seemed to be growing and flourishing, she just felt like she was stuck in a rut.

  “Goodness, I thought they were nice. I’ve heard about women and their shoes, but—” Maybe it was something about her face, maybe it was just his time living as a girl himself, but he just shook his head to interrupt himself. “It’s flying lessons today, right?” Marcellin asked a beat later.

  Ukrah nodded, and as if in response, there was a crashing sound that could only be Voirdr slamming into something near the window of her room.

  “The lessons don’t seem to be taking, if I’m honest.”

  That startled a short but dry chuckle from her. In the seven months since the battle, her little boy had hit another growth spurt—one that finally strengthened his wings enough for actual flight. There was hardly anything he loved more than working himsel
f up to a fast, urgent run then launching himself into the air. He did it so often that he practically had it down to a science, and it was lovely to watch his graceful leap into the sky.

  Unfortunately, he didn’t seem to get how to do anything else.

  He had a hard time turning, banking, slowing down or, perhaps most importantly, landing. It was funny to see him switch from self-assured and soaring to a gangly-legged mess as he tried to figure out how to coordinate his limbs, but it was much less amusing whenever he ran face-first into things. Or clipped them. Or slammed them with his tail.

  Ukrah was worried most of all that he’d hurt himself. Wouldn’t that be something? Finally blessed with the black dragon only for him to die young from a head-on collision with a wall. That would be a horrible waste of destiny if there ever was one.

  “At least he’s not hitting the ground with his head when he lands anymore. Or belly-flopping. I’m hoping when things calm down a bit that Elspeth will be able to visit again.”

  “Hah, I suppose that makes sense. What’s the point in being bonded to the oldest and wisest dragon rider there is if you can’t use her for some lessons? Don’t hurt that she’s easy on the eyes.”

  Ukrah nodded absently, grabbing her satchel to fill with treats for when Voirdr got things right. “She is, yeah.”

  “It’s the hair, isn’t it? I think I’ve heard at least a dozen bard songs dedicated to her long, starlight tresses. You know, Lord Ain has hair almost as white as hers, but you don’t hear songs about that. Or Eist either, really. Her hair has apparently been white since the whole saving the world thing.”

  Ukrah tried to listen, she did, but her mind was so full, and she felt like sometimes Marcellin just liked to talk because he had been forced to be silent for so long when he was in hiding. “I think it’s the eyes.”

  “Oh, true. They’re lavender, right? Like her dragon? Heard a tale about that too. Something about how she and her dragon drank from a pool of water in the moonlight after barely surviving a battle together? One they had both bled into. Personally, that sounds like it would taste horrible to me.” He paused as Ukrah double-checked that she had everything she needed. It wouldn’t do to get out there and realize she’d forgotten her canteen or her sun cloak. Which wasn’t even for her, by the way, but Crispin always insisted on standing outside even when his pale skin started to pinken, then turn red, so Ukrah had long since learned to bring something for him since the stubborn boy refused to bring it for himself.

  “It makes you wonder what kind of songs they’ll make about you.”

  That gave her pause, and she sent a dubious look over to the young man. “Nobody is going to write a song about me.”

  “Sure, they are. Why wouldn’t they? You’re restoring the old spirits to our dying world, or something like that. I’ll admit the details are kinda fuzzy since my first months here involved a lot of poppy’s milk and green dragon gas.”

  “First of all, we’re restoring the old spirits. We’re all vessels. Secondly, most people will never hear about us. We’re not fighting a war, like Eist did. We’re not killing some massive evil that had tormented our world for hundreds of years. If we do this right, no one will ever know what we’ve done.”

  “Oh… That’s a bit depressing.”

  “Is it?” For the first time since he’d entered, she gave him her full attention. “I’m looking forward to it. Look how Lady W’allenhaus lives, the troubles she still has. She doesn’t leave this manor unless it’s necessary, and even then, you can tell she’s often more uncomfortable than not with people’s attention to her. And can you blame her when some of them curse her name? Call her an usurper? A god-killer? Beg her to bless their babies or their finances or free them of some debt?”

  “Well, when you say it like that…but I’m sure there’s plenty of upside.”

  “Maybe there is, but I’m looking forward to slipping into anonymity. Maybe I’ll grow a garden, travel the world. Learn more magic that isn’t related to controlling the power inside of me. Not having a power inside of me that can kill people in just a snap and is so tempting to give into.”

  He swallowed, and she watched the column of his throat bob. “Is that what it’s like for you?”

  She shrugged. She never told the others how her spirit felt. About the voice demanding justice and punishment, how her soul screamed if it thought that anyone in need of protection was hurting. How it would be so easy to just let go and let the bubbling black in her consume everything and anyone who dared to do evil.

  But she knew better. And if anything, watching the executions of those who had betrayed their people, who had attacked the witches’ refuge, had burned the idea solidly into her mind. She was not judge, jury, and executioner, no matter who or what she was a vessel to. If she killed, it was only because it was necessary.

  There would never be another repeat of her village. Not if she could help it.

  But Marcellin was still standing there, staring at her with an apprehensive expression.

  “Does it matter if it is?” she asked plainly.

  He moved to her quickly, or at least as quickly as he could considering he was still getting used to his new leg. It was a beautiful thing, a real work of art that apparently Dille had commissioned specifically. After hiring the best wood carver in the capitol, she and her closest students who were still alive had worked charms on it, making the socket of it softer, the bend of it better. Ukrah hadn’t been actively involved in the process, but she’d heard that the ankle itself had taken over a month and hundreds of different enchantments and charms.

  They said, in time, nobody would be able to tell it was false at all and his spine would stop hurting from the uneven gait that often came with a wooden leg. Although it had only been barely more than a moon, it was clear he loved both his new leg and his arm.

  “Yes,” he said when he was almost to her, his wooden hand resting on her shoulder. Dille had worked on that too, of course, and called it her crowning glory. The fingers moved, although sometimes creakily, and Marcellin said he could feel certain things through it. Temperature, texture, to an extent. Ukrah remembered the day they had first attached it to him then uttered the spells that activated it. He’d wept, openly wept, and it’d been wonderful, heartbreaking, and lovely all at the same time. “Because I thought I was the only one.”

  That surprised her, and she felt herself relax slightly. “Sometimes I forget that you’re not like Helena or Crispin.”

  He laughed at that. “The spirit of all that’s warm and fuzzy and the spirit of luck? I wish. Instead, I get the spirit who likes to collapse caves on people.”

  “If you hadn’t, those men would have gone on to hurt a lot of people.”

  He shook his hand, waving her concern away. “Oh, I’m not upset I killed them. Those men deserved a lot worse, believe me. It’s just… I suppose it’s hard not to be jealous when you see how Helena and Crispin’s magic works.”

  Ukrah let out a long breath. She didn’t think that she had ever expressed that sentiment to anybody, but she’d felt that way ever since she’d first been enveloped in the wonderful embrace of the plump woman. “I understand exactly what you mean.”

  For some reason, a bit of color filled in the boy’s cheeks and he turned around to take a few steps back. It might have been a bizarre movement in anybody else, but she knew he had a very difficult time walking backwards, even with his new prosthetic, and that he was still practicing how to do so.

  But when he did turn to face her again, the smile on his face was sweet. “Good to know I’m not alone.”

  “No, I suppose none of us are alone really. Not anymore.”

  That was certainly a thought, and it hung heavy in the air for a moment. It was clear that both of them had lost so much, had survived traumas that maybe they would have been better off not surviving, but at least they would never have to worry about being isolated from the world again. They were connected, by their souls and by their destinies.

>   “Well, anyways, songs and legends aside, I was wondering if I could come to your flying lesson?”

  Oh.

  That was the whole reason she was dressed in her sparring clothes and new boots. For a moment, she’d almost forgotten. Clearing her throat, she gave him a nod. “Sure. As long as you’re ready to dive out of the way if Voirdr makes a wrong turn?”

  “If?” he teased as they walked toward the door together.

  “Hey, don’t tempt fate. Goodness knows we do enough of that already.”

  2

  Soaring Dreams

  “Hey there, are you out to another flying lesson?”

  Ukrah looked up from the plethora of treats she had been shoving into her satchel. Marcellin lounged against one of the barrels in the larder, idly eating a pear. His gaze on her had been much too intense, much too weighted, so she was glad for the interruption of Cassinda above.

  “You know she is,” Marcellin answered around a mouthful of fruit. “The only reason she ever goes outside is either for flying or an execution.”

  “That’s not true,” Cassinda said with an arch to her brow. “Sometimes she goes out to fight Ale’a.”

  “And lose repeatedly,” Ukrah added. She did enjoy her sparring sessions with the older woman, but it was frustrating to be almost always outmatched. She did tell herself repeatedly that Ale’a had about a decade on her and a whole war, but it still itched her pride a bit.